Jak Nazryth
Mongoose
New Earth-like planet discovered!!!???
http://news.yahoo.com/video/science-15749654/earth-s-twin-discovered-27423988.html
http://news.yahoo.com/video/science-15749654/earth-s-twin-discovered-27423988.html
New Earth-like planet discovered!?
- Thread starter Jak Nazryth
- Start date
As information comes in, it is clear the galaxy is packed with planets! Speculations as to their nature are exciting and interesting.
There are opportunities to appreciate our solar system. I stopped by a telescope at a local park and viewed our sun and then at a local event saw quite clearly 4 of Jupiter's moons.'
Our solar system and our galaxy are an incredible playground for science and theory, and a great backdrop for RPG adventure!
There are opportunities to appreciate our solar system. I stopped by a telescope at a local park and viewed our sun and then at a local event saw quite clearly 4 of Jupiter's moons.'
Our solar system and our galaxy are an incredible playground for science and theory, and a great backdrop for RPG adventure!
The "hard" data on this planet is encouraging, but far from definite. Be cool if it turns out to be "earth like" though! Not that it really matters since we are at least 50 years from being able to even travel there, if we are ever able to make the break throughs necessary to be able to travel there. None of us will see it in our life times.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
We all know any year now someone wil have an epiphany and Jump 1 drives will be a reality! Then we can take closer looks at these worlds.
Many years back I researched the XYZ coordinates for all stars within about 25 lightyears of Earth and put it in a database to determine jump distances. Then I looked at the stars and built systems using Traveller for my What If this was possible. First thing I discovered was how many flare stars are around us. Flare stars pretty much make their systems a dead zone for planetary bodies. What was left was stil significant to populate our local area of space and the space lanes lead to interesting speculation and analysis as to why and how colonization would occur.
I wonder if there's a catalogue of those same star systems in real life. If they can look at a star 600 lightyears away, they must have done all this to a mere 25 lightyears. Nice to know how many kids the neighbors have.
Many years back I researched the XYZ coordinates for all stars within about 25 lightyears of Earth and put it in a database to determine jump distances. Then I looked at the stars and built systems using Traveller for my What If this was possible. First thing I discovered was how many flare stars are around us. Flare stars pretty much make their systems a dead zone for planetary bodies. What was left was stil significant to populate our local area of space and the space lanes lead to interesting speculation and analysis as to why and how colonization would occur.
I wonder if there's a catalogue of those same star systems in real life. If they can look at a star 600 lightyears away, they must have done all this to a mere 25 lightyears. Nice to know how many kids the neighbors have.
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
...Or I actually do a search first then make a statement.
Let's start with the 100 nearest stars: http://www.chara.gsu.edu/RECONS/TOP100.posted.htm
Then see thoses stars in 3D: http://www.bodurov.com/NearestStars/
And, lastly, a list showing known planets around nearby starts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars
Let's start with the 100 nearest stars: http://www.chara.gsu.edu/RECONS/TOP100.posted.htm
Then see thoses stars in 3D: http://www.bodurov.com/NearestStars/
And, lastly, a list showing known planets around nearby starts: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nearest_stars
Pentallion
Mongoose
Something I learned about why there's life on Earth and not Mars a few years ago.
Sulfur is a pretty common substance in the universe. It is so common, in fact, that it composes a great deal of pretty much every planet in our solar system. NASA once commented that Mars would smell like rotten eggs due to the high level of sulfur there. Venus is high in sulfur as well. If we had that much sulfur on Earth we'd have such acid rain that there would be no vegetable matter. Life as we know it simply can't exist on most planets.
So why wasn't Earth formed with as much sulfur as all the other planets? The answer is that it was. Under the earths crust it still has just as much sulfur as one would expect to find given the amount of sulfur present in the universe. Just the surface is low on sulfur, but this wasn't always so. Unique circumstances conspired to remove most of the sulfur from Earths surface long before life began.
We can thank our asteroid belt for our existence. As Jupiters orbit pulled away from the Suns, its gravity pulled the asteroid belt further away as well. However, at some point the asteroid belt reached equilibrium where Jupiters pull matched the Suns. This caused a vibration that caused each asteroid to do one of two things: Fall back towards the Sun or continue outward away from the Sun. Those rocks that went outward formed our modern asteroid belt that lies between the Earth and Jupiter. Those rocks that plummeted back to the Sun didn't all make it, however. Many of them struck Mars, Venus, Mercury and Earth.
Earth, being the largest of those four planets, took the most hits. Its larger gravity well actually pulled asteroids into its orbit and away from the other three planets. When these rocks hit earth they blew the surface up into space. Much of this space dust was sucked away to the sun. In this way, most of the sulfur on earths surface was blasted off or driven deeper into the crust.
This paved the way for Earth to develop life.
So even if we find an Earth like planet circling the habitable zone of another star, unless we see some means for which the planets sulfur content could have been blasted off its surface, chances are we'll find a Mars like planet, not a planet rich in life.
Unless life can exist in a sulfuric environment. You know, like the devils and demons of myth that always left the reek of sulfur behind when they left (in their chariots of fire).
Sulfur is a pretty common substance in the universe. It is so common, in fact, that it composes a great deal of pretty much every planet in our solar system. NASA once commented that Mars would smell like rotten eggs due to the high level of sulfur there. Venus is high in sulfur as well. If we had that much sulfur on Earth we'd have such acid rain that there would be no vegetable matter. Life as we know it simply can't exist on most planets.
So why wasn't Earth formed with as much sulfur as all the other planets? The answer is that it was. Under the earths crust it still has just as much sulfur as one would expect to find given the amount of sulfur present in the universe. Just the surface is low on sulfur, but this wasn't always so. Unique circumstances conspired to remove most of the sulfur from Earths surface long before life began.
We can thank our asteroid belt for our existence. As Jupiters orbit pulled away from the Suns, its gravity pulled the asteroid belt further away as well. However, at some point the asteroid belt reached equilibrium where Jupiters pull matched the Suns. This caused a vibration that caused each asteroid to do one of two things: Fall back towards the Sun or continue outward away from the Sun. Those rocks that went outward formed our modern asteroid belt that lies between the Earth and Jupiter. Those rocks that plummeted back to the Sun didn't all make it, however. Many of them struck Mars, Venus, Mercury and Earth.
Earth, being the largest of those four planets, took the most hits. Its larger gravity well actually pulled asteroids into its orbit and away from the other three planets. When these rocks hit earth they blew the surface up into space. Much of this space dust was sucked away to the sun. In this way, most of the sulfur on earths surface was blasted off or driven deeper into the crust.
This paved the way for Earth to develop life.
So even if we find an Earth like planet circling the habitable zone of another star, unless we see some means for which the planets sulfur content could have been blasted off its surface, chances are we'll find a Mars like planet, not a planet rich in life.
Unless life can exist in a sulfuric environment. You know, like the devils and demons of myth that always left the reek of sulfur behind when they left (in their chariots of fire).
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
Here's a source describing what Pentallion said. The lack and loss of sulphur was also part of the formation of our particular moon.
With the very high abundance of sulfur in the universe it's a wonder our own Earth exists if not for several very, very rare incidents that created our world. Our form of life may be ultimately unique.
As we recently discovered, a bacteria uses arsenic to build its DNA.Things we always believed to be impossible for life are shattered. There may actually be better chances the universe is abundant with sulfur based life. That means we're the bizzare and unnatural aliens!
With the very high abundance of sulfur in the universe it's a wonder our own Earth exists if not for several very, very rare incidents that created our world. Our form of life may be ultimately unique.
As we recently discovered, a bacteria uses arsenic to build its DNA.Things we always believed to be impossible for life are shattered. There may actually be better chances the universe is abundant with sulfur based life. That means we're the bizzare and unnatural aliens!
Reynard
Emperor Mongoose
Personally I prefer a universe based on Star Trek, Star Wars or even Traveller in which there are zillions of earth like worlds waiting for us to exploi... develope.
Then again, what if it turns out our universe is too poisonous for any life forms. All those amino acid laden meteoroids are uslessly seeding deadballs in habital zones. Worst yet we discover jump drives and exploration leads us to this conclusion that we're THE life in the universe. Would we keep exploring knowing there is no one out there? What would we do otherwise with a universe that's all ours but also very unfriendy to our lifeforms? Would we find ways to settle to reap the resources? Would terraforming science go wild?
Then again, what if it turns out our universe is too poisonous for any life forms. All those amino acid laden meteoroids are uslessly seeding deadballs in habital zones. Worst yet we discover jump drives and exploration leads us to this conclusion that we're THE life in the universe. Would we keep exploring knowing there is no one out there? What would we do otherwise with a universe that's all ours but also very unfriendy to our lifeforms? Would we find ways to settle to reap the resources? Would terraforming science go wild?
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Well considering that we need a very narrow range of atmosphere to actually breath human explorers are going to be spending the bulk of their time in vacc suits anyway.
You too can travel light years from your home system, face life or death situations daily, pioneer those first few FTL flights and end up on alien worlds where you live in the same kind of domes as you were born in on the lunar colony and the view out the window is the same as from the Mars space training dome.
Why would people fight over resources when there are far more systems out there than can possibly be used in tens of thousands of years by scores of races. Class one planets on the other hand, worlds that can be colonised with out terra forming. If one system in a hundred yields one such world that are going to be extremely valuable.
There are far more worlds and systems about than are covered in that one world per parsec/hex map. Those two and 3 parsec empty areas on the map contain a great many systems and worlds that are basically worthless to humans. Without a gas giant to refuel those so called empty hexes are never entered but there could be an entire empire of Sulphur breathers who have marked all the human occupied hexes as empty space because they don’t value the oxygen worlds.
With jump drives allowing both races to cross those “empty” hexes they could go for thousands of years without actually meeting the others. Those stories of aliens and strange star ships that both races deride as rumour and fantasy, well you never know.
Or perhaps it is one world in a thousand, or one in ten thousand. Perhaps only the most valuable worlds are designated as sector or sub sector hubs and terra formed. Perhaps all those other worlds with poisonous air and acid rain have domed colonies and resource extraction points and the people there are born, live long lives and die without ever having breathed real fresh air.
Perhaps the rich ones take holidays to systems with a world where they can walk about outside without suits, perhaps systems build farms in great orbital or la grange cylinders or rings because that’s the only place human crops will grow.
It would still be Traveller but it would be a very different verse.
You too can travel light years from your home system, face life or death situations daily, pioneer those first few FTL flights and end up on alien worlds where you live in the same kind of domes as you were born in on the lunar colony and the view out the window is the same as from the Mars space training dome.
Why would people fight over resources when there are far more systems out there than can possibly be used in tens of thousands of years by scores of races. Class one planets on the other hand, worlds that can be colonised with out terra forming. If one system in a hundred yields one such world that are going to be extremely valuable.
There are far more worlds and systems about than are covered in that one world per parsec/hex map. Those two and 3 parsec empty areas on the map contain a great many systems and worlds that are basically worthless to humans. Without a gas giant to refuel those so called empty hexes are never entered but there could be an entire empire of Sulphur breathers who have marked all the human occupied hexes as empty space because they don’t value the oxygen worlds.
With jump drives allowing both races to cross those “empty” hexes they could go for thousands of years without actually meeting the others. Those stories of aliens and strange star ships that both races deride as rumour and fantasy, well you never know.
Or perhaps it is one world in a thousand, or one in ten thousand. Perhaps only the most valuable worlds are designated as sector or sub sector hubs and terra formed. Perhaps all those other worlds with poisonous air and acid rain have domed colonies and resource extraction points and the people there are born, live long lives and die without ever having breathed real fresh air.
Perhaps the rich ones take holidays to systems with a world where they can walk about outside without suits, perhaps systems build farms in great orbital or la grange cylinders or rings because that’s the only place human crops will grow.
It would still be Traveller but it would be a very different verse.
Even with Jump-10 we could hardly ever arrive at that conclusion.Reynard said:
Our own little galaxy has a diameter of more than 30,000 parsec
and is currently estimated to contain more than 500 million planets
in the habitable zones of their stars - and once we have surveyed
enough of them to think that we are alone in the galaxy, there still
are more than 50 other galaxies in the Local Group, and beyond is
the "rest" of the universe.
Besides, looking at the numbers the probability that Earth is the ga-
laxy's only planet in a (for us) habitable zone where complex, intelli-
gent life has developed is approximately 1 : 500,000,000 ...
far-trader
Mongoose
rust said:
1 : 100,000,000,000 isn't it?
<sings - poorly ;-) >
"...Of the galaxy we call the 'Milky Way'. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars..."
far-trader
Mongoose
rust said:
Ah... right, you did say in the star's habitable zone, I didn't properly process that bit
...carry on!
